Moelis & Company

Good afternoon and welcome to the Mollis and Company Earnings Conference call for the second quarter of 2022. To begin, I'll turn the call over to Mr. Matt Soukroft.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for Mollis and Company's second quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference call. On the phone today are Ken Mollis, Chairman and CEO, and Joe Simon, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to note that the remarks made on this call may contain certain forward-looking statements which are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those identified from time to time in the risk factors section of Molson Company's filings with the SEC. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated. The firm undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Our comments today include references to certain adjusted financial measures. We believe these measures, when presented together with comparable gap measures, are useful to investors to compare our results across several periods and to better understand our operating results. The reconciliation of these adjusted financial measures with the relevant GAAP financial information and other information required by Reg G is provided in the firm's earnings release, which can be found on our investor relations website at investors.molis.com. I will now turn the call over to Joe to discuss our results.

Thanks, Matt, and good afternoon, everyone. On today's call, I'll go through our financial results, and then Ken will comment further on the business. We achieved adjusted revenues of $237 million in the second quarter, a decrease of 34% versus the record prior year period. The decrease in revenue during the second quarter was primarily attributed to fewer transaction completions during the quarter, which is a function of the elongated time to close we have remarked on previously. Our first half adjusted revenues of $536 million were down 14% from the record first half of last year. Moving to expenses, our compensation expense was accrued at 59%, consistent with the prior quarter. Our second quarter non-comp expenses were $40 million, resulting in a non-comp ratio of 17%. The increase in our non-compensation expense for the quarter is primarily attributed to client travel as well as transaction-related expenses. We expect our non-compensation expenses to be in the $39 million range for the third quarter, excluding transaction-related expenses. We achieved a quarterly pre-tax margin of 25%. Moving to taxes, our underlying corporate tax rate continued to be 27.1%. Regarding capital allocation, during the second quarter, we repurchased approximately 822,000 shares, totaling $35 million. For the full year up to yesterday, we purchased approximately 3 million shares, totaling $140 million. Furthermore, the Board declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.60 per share. As always, we remain committed to returning 100% of our excess cash. And lastly, we continue to maintain a fortress balance sheet with $277 million of cash and liquid investments and no debt. I'll now turn the call over to Ken.